Chapter 4: Let Him Climb

I took the pen.

Sebastian stood very still.

Four hundred and ten thousand dollars a year.

A corner office. A title on a door.

Everything Trevor had ever wanted, and every cent of it built on my overtime.

I signed my name.

Mr. Pruitt made a small sound in his throat.

Sebastian took the folder back and looked at my signature.

"I'd have bet the building you'd tear it up," he said.

"Tearing it up would just make him a man who got passed over."

"And this makes him what?"

I capped the pen and set it down.

"A man with a very long way to fall. In front of everyone he ever bragged to."

For the first time since I walked in, Sebastian Thorpe looked at me.

"Evelyn said you'd be like this," he said quietly.

"Like what?"

"Patient."

On Monday, Sterling Group announced its new vice presidents.

Trevor posted a photo of himself shaking the Sterling CEO's hand under a banner.

Kristen commented with a string of heart emojis.

My mother shared it with the caption, "So proud of my future son-in-law!"

I was back in Columbus by then.

I had two weeks' notice to work at Riverside, and I wanted to work it.

Those people had been my family for nine years.

On Wednesday night the ER was packed.

A car crash, two overdoses, a kid with a bead up his nose.

At eleven o'clock the doors slid open and Trevor walked in.

He had his arm around Kristen.

She was holding her left wrist against her chest.

"We need to be seen," Trevor told the front desk. "Now. I'm a vice president at Sterling Group."

The triage nurse looked at Kristen's wrist.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Divorce Me Today, Beg Me Tomorrow from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.